Some of the inclusions in this listing stretch the definition of homeschooler, but it’s an interesting collection nonetheless, titled The World’s 15 Most Extraordinary Homeschoolers and including some we’ve covered in the past (Astra Taylor, Tim Tebow), some we weren’t familiar with but will definitely check out (Jedediah Purdy, Sho Yano), and some we were surprised to learn about (Condoleezza Rice, Julian Assange):

Boring, unathletic, antisocial, fashion-challenged, politically retrograde, culturally backward, religiously extreme…the list of homeschooler stereotypes is seemingly endless and almost entirely negative. Despite the growing popularity of the homeschooling movement in the United States and around the world, homeschooling and its graduates continue to be viewed with suspicion, and not a little condescension, by the mainstream. But as our list of the world’s 15 most extraordinary homeschoolers shows, the homeschooling population is extraordinarily diverse, defying every attempt to shoehorn them into a single mold. The homeschoolers on this list are geniuses and jocks, conservatives and progressives, fundamentalists and hippies, scientists and artists….

The Huffington Post picked up the story we reported here on Dec. 4th about the CNN news video titled African-American Homeschooling On The Rise, But Why?

Titling the piece Homeschooling On The Rise In Minority Communities, the Huffington Post chose to lead off with the statement, “Since 1999, homeschooling in the United States has grown a dramatic 74 percent, according to CNN.” The article then reiterates “Homeschooling is becoming increasingly popular among minority communities, who feel that their cultural perspective is lacking from American classrooms.”

The rest of the piece is the video clip with Joyce Burges, founder of the National Black Home Educators.

Susan Ryan shares a heart-warming story at her Corn and Oil blog about a homeschooling family who purchased a local school and are sharing it with their community:

“When they heard about the sale of the school and its contents, Melanie and Gary Doyle thought they may end up purchasing school supplies for their home-schooled kids. Instead, they bought the school itself.”

Features Joyce Burges of Indiana, founder of the National Black Home Educators, talking about her family’s experiences, along with James and Vanessa Leak, who homeschool their children in Georgia. According to the video homeschooling in the US has gone up by 74% since 1999.

At 14, when girls can be preoccupied with clothes, makeup and hanging out with friends, Mikayla Holden is busy writing a sequel to her first Western novel, which was published this summer. Read more at the link.

“There are wonderful holiday-themed lesson plans, imaginative plans for common subjects, and just some wonderful families enjoying life and their homeschooling journeys by kicking up their heels and taking advantage of this sometimes chaotic time of year to try something new and different.”

In this first of three posts, titled Compelled to Attend, HEM’s Road Less Travelled columnist, Linda Dobson, is revisiting her first book, The Art of Education: Reclaiming Your Family, Community and Self, published by Home Education Press in 1995. An excerpt:

And if colleges and universities ignore the true meaning of education and accept indoctrination as their function in society, what then is the purpose of all the years of schooling that lead up to college, starting at the tender age of five or, in many cases today, even younger?

Zero Tuition College (ZTC) is a blog that explains how to replace the 4-year college experience with self-directed learning. Founded by Blake Boles, who designs and leads international adventures and domestic leadership programs through his company Unschool Adventures, Zero Tuition College is designed to show self-directed learners how to skip college and get a higher education on their own terms. From the Zero Tuition College web site:

We are not anti-college or anti-structured-learning. We do believe that:

* college is incredibly expensive,
* too many people have blind faith in the power of the college degree, and
* designing your own education is more satisfying than following the conventional path.

How can the 4-year college experience be replaced? With self-directed learning. Self-directed learning is the art of figuring out what you want to learn and then doing it without the oversight of an institution. Americans were mostly self-directed learners in the 18th and 19th centuries. While everyone is capable of self-directed learning, in an age of powerful, government-supported educational institutions, it’s easy to forget how to do it.

Typical local homeschooling piece, Homeschooling in Huntsville, for WAAY-TV, asks the usual questions, provides the usual answers: “HUNTSVILLE, AL—From the first day of kindergarten to graduation, a student’s progress through school is marked with regular rites of passage. Lockers, hall passes and high school cliques are all part of life along the way. But more and more families are choosing a different path: homeschooling.”